Idol is a polished bronze version of an eponymous boxwood carving that Hepworth made in 1955–56 [BH 206]. Writing in 1978, the curator Douglas Hall stated that Idol is ‘essentially a grainy shape following the curvature of the slender block available to the artist.’ The title of Idol implies that the sculpture is a ritualistic place-holder for some divine being. Certain dominant types of sculptural form recurred throughout Hepworth’s creative lifetime, and she proactively conceived and made work that satisfied certain typologies: the standing form; the closed form; the two forms. Idol is an example of the standing form, which Hepworth frequently associated with the presence of a human figure in landscape. And as she explained in 1946, ‘[t]his relationship between figure and landscape is vitally important to me.’ The elongated upright form of Idol is animated by three small, eye-like apertures at the top. The form tapers at the waist and an ovoid indentation further down creates an echo of biped morphology.

Hepworth began to use bronze regularly in 1956, and from 1959 she treated some bronze sculptures with a highly polished, unpatinated, mirror-like finish. The art historian A. M. Hammacher noted that the quality of polished bronze was ‘lacking all the organic naturalness’ that had characterised the artist’s bronze sculpture of the mid-fifties. This marked an intentional shift in Hepworth’s handling of cast bronze, away from gestural, hand-finished qualities towards precious, precise, self-contained ones. These qualities enhance the ritualistic, hermetic, semi-divine aspect of Idol. They invest it with a greater dignity and untouchable separateness, and they amplify the solemn, supernatural aspect of Hepworth’s idea.

Occasionally during the artist’s life and shortly afterwards, bronze castings of earlier carved sculptures were dated not by the year of the casting but rather by the year the exemplar was made. When the polished bronze Idol was included in the Scottish Arts Council touring exhibition of Hepworth’s sculptures and prints in 1978, it was dated 1955–56 rather than 1971. Like her friend Naum Gabo, she was disposed to date her work according to the year that she devised the concept, rather than the year that she executed it.

This cast of Idol was selected by the ceramic artist Magdalene Odundo for a curated exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, held in 2019. The shamanic or ritual quality of Idol was emphasised by its inclusion alongside ritual objects from across the African continent. A catalogue note gave the following response to the work:

Although religious, Barbara Hepworth’s beliefs were unorthodox, combining Christian Science and Anglicanism, and she saw her work as an extension of her faith. In 1955, she wrote, “Sculpture, to me, is primitive, religious, passionate, and magical—always, always affirmative.” She was also interested in other spiritualities, including Zen and Bahá’í teachings, and her titles of the 1950s and 1960s—such as Idol and Totem—conjure associations with traditions of object worship alien to Christianity.

In the manuscript catalogue of Hepworth’s sculpture held in the Tate Archive, this cast is denoted as ‘A.C.’ (artist's copy). It has remained in Hepworth’s family since her death in 1975.